Subtitling:

Most appearance settings are governed by the player itself, and most players will display a centered text in Arial font, by default. So some of the Caption Appearance settings from the Advanced Settings are not applicable to Subtitled outputs: Font, Font Size,Text Alignment and Text Background Color. See our articles on how to change the location and the appearance of subtitles on VLC or QuickTime Pro.

The Web settings are not applicable to Subtitling -- when doing the encoding process we try to take as many settings as possible from the original movie (not from the Advanced Settings).

Open Captioning:

Open Captions are rendered right into the video image, so users will not be able to turn them off or alter their size or font when viewing the video. The Open Captions will be encoded with the font, color, size, and positioning (top, bottom, or below the video) as selected in your settings -- please ensure you set these parameters according to your needs. You can later use the Redo feature for free to change these values and generate a new encoded file, if you need to change them after reviewing the encoded video.

There are 3 possible options for Vertical placement: below the video, over the video (bottom), or at the top of the screen. By default, we place the captions under the video. To change this setting, open the Advanced Settings -> Video Encoding, and uncheck the Open Captions Under Video box. The captions will then be placed over the video, at the bottom of the screen, slightly wider and higher than the caption line(s).Another option is to have the captions placed at the top of the screen. For this purpose, open the Broadcast tab, and select Top of Screen, next to Caption Location. This will place all the captions at the top of the screen.

The font size can be set under the Caption Appearance tab. We recommend selecting the Custom option (in points) for large videos: 48 for 1080p videos, and 32 for 720p.

The Text Background Color setting, under Caption Appearance, will only display two possible values: black or transparent. If you choose Not Specified from the drop-down menu, the caption pane will be transparent; if you choose any other color, the caption pane will be black. Note that if you choose to have the captions placed under the video, the Background Color will always be black.

The Web settings are not applicable to Open Captioning -- when doing the encoding process we try to take as many settings as possible from the original movie (not from the Advanced Settings). The exception is the Text Pane Sizeheight: the height can be set, if you choose to have the caption pane below the video. We recommend 80 pixels for 1080p videos, and 60 pixels for 720p. If the caption pane is overlaying the video, then it will show just slightly wider and higher than the caption line(s) and it's not possible to select a bigger height for it.

The encoded videos will display fine on any modern player that renders the full video pane. But if you are using older display technology that requires the text to be constrained to the "title-safe" area of the screen (e.g., SD broadcasting, or running NTSC on CRT devices), you will need to adjust the font size, line length, and number of caption lines to keep your captions within the title-safe area for your application. Because modern media players do not have a title-safe constraint, the Open Caption encoder is not enforcing any "title-safe" constraints.If this is an option to you, we would strongly recommend viewing Open Captioned videos on modern devices, such as flat panel screens, plasma displays, or liquid crystal display (LCD) screens, which can usually show most of the picture outside the "safe" areas.